This morning, I asked a single – but perhaps puzzling – question: What did Burt Bacharach and Jackie DeShannon know in 1965 that Whitewater’s city manager, officials, politicians, so-called ‘people of influence,’ and press do not understand even now? Here’s the answer. In 1965, singer Jackie DeShannon had a pop hit with Burt Bacharach’s “What…
City
City
Join the Downtown Clean Sweep on Thursday, July 3rd
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, University
Support Whitewater’s Make a Difference Day: October 3, 2008
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s an announcement that I received that I’m happy to post — it’s a request for projects for the UW-W’s Make a Difference Day. Here are the particulars — Who: UW-Whitewater Campus and Whitewater Community Members When: Friday, October 3, 2008 Where: Whitewater, Wisconsin On Friday, October 3, 2008 volunteers from the UW-Whitewater students and…
City
Join the Downtown Clean Sweep on Thursday, June 26th
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Planning
Planning Commission Meeting from 6/16 (Part 1)
by JOHN ADAMS •
In some respects, this is a new Planning Commission, with a new chair (Kristine Zaballos) now in that role, and a new term, beginning after the latest round of nominations from the Common Council. This is still true even though many others on the Commission are incumbents. Staff reports now appear earlier on the agenda,…
City, Police
Whitewater Police Department Re-Accreditation
by JOHN ADAMS •
Update: 6/17, 6:58 p.m. At our Common Council meeting tonight, Chief Coan predictably lauded his department’s position (and implicitly his leadership) as one of only 16 accredited departments in the state, out of over 600. He didn’t say how many even bothered to apply for accreditation. (See Point 1, below.) One more point, not minor…
City
Our Low Expectations
by JOHN ADAMS •
Wisconsin has been a high tax state for years, stretching well back from the Doyle administration through Tommy Thompson’s many years in office (Gov. McCallum having served only briefly in between). The Wisconsin State Journal recently noted positively a study contending that Wisconsin was out of the rankings of the ten highest taxed states for…
City
Update: Go Nuclear!
by JOHN ADAMS •
This morning, I proposed a bold new future of clean, efficient, safe nuclear power for Whitewater. Ordinarily, a proposal so visionary, so groundbreaking, might have to wait years for vindication and acceptance. Not this time – only a few hours after I posted my proposal for an atomic age in Whitewater, the Reuters news agency…
City
Go Nuclear!
by JOHN ADAMS •
America finds herself beset with two fossil fuel concerns. We worry that we are damaging the environment by using too much fossil fuel; we worry that there is not enough fossil fuel to use. There are alternatives, including one we have foolishly ignored. America began the atomic age, but she has since abandoned a committed…
City
From the Department of Platitudes, “Are You Kidding?” Division
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here are a few of the empty and inapplicable phrases that politicians in Whitewater often use to describe and justify their actions. They’ve used far more expressions than these, but we can consider this post the first in an occasional series. Bring solutions, not problems. I’ve teased about this before, yet this expression is as…
City
Who’s This? The Answer’s Below…
by JOHN ADAMS •
This morning I offered a blind quotation describing a social group. I asked if you might recognize in the description some people you know. Here’s the quotation, once more – [L]ocals were overwhelmed. Modern…ways and the waves of foreigners had created among them a sense of panic, he said, “the erosion of everything traditional and…
City
Common Council’s June 3rd Meeting: Cars at One’s House
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater has had an ordinance, seldom enforced, that limits the number of cars that may be parked outside on certain parts of a residential property. Members of the Council had understandable trouble determining what our current two-car limitation really meant – the jumble of definitions of side yard, front yard, etc. is like a parody…
City
Common Council’s June 3rd Meeting: Unrelated People at a Residence
by JOHN ADAMS •
I have written before that I consider civil enforcement (of ordinances, etc.) broken. (See, for example, Our Enforcement Culture. Many people in many towns have doubts about the reasonable, fair, unbiased enforcement of ordinances; those concerns are more serious in Whitewater. It was, after all, only last fall that a longstanding member of Common Council…